foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction

027 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction

028 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction ~ With the Ability to Marvel ~

by Marcel Feil ~ curator Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam

Imagine that the Martians succeeded, after all, in reaching Planet Earth it doesn’t. Perhaps the ability to feel wonder and surprise is an intrin- and managed a safe landing. Without us earthlings noticing, they have sic human quality. It makes us ask questions and is therefore the origin lived among us for some time and have been able to examine our plan- of knowledge and development. This, however, may be where the snake et at their leisure. It is interesting to attempt to see our own environ- bites its own tail. For the more we know about the way the world is put ment through their eyes. What do they see? What strikes them? And together, the greater the danger that this will colour our way of looking what will fascinate them enough to take back with them as typical of at things and that prior knowledge will obstruct our ability to feel genu- our planet? ine wonder. In fact, however, our amazement may actually increase as our knowledge grows, and every answer may open up unknown worlds What these questions are really about, of course, is an attempt to see the and raise new questions. This would make scientists the people with the world we assume to be familiar without any prior knowledge, without any strongest sense of amazement about our wondrous and inexplicable prejudice or hypotheses. It is an attempt to see and experience things as world. they really are, as they exist outside of us. It’s a renewed acquaintance without artificial connotations, and therefore as objective as possible. Knowledge comes with the years. The occasional genuinely amazed sci- Of course that is extremely difficult, if not impossible. How can we es- entist aside, the fact is that as time passes we feel less and less won- cape from our own selves and experience the true nature of things? And der and amazement. We just don’t have the time. There’s too much to what is that, anyway, the true nature of something? It’s a question which do. In our daily lives we are mainly occupied with practicalities: getting philosophers and scientists have been asking themselves for centuries, dressed, eating, going to work, working, returning home. All our time is and which they have not been able to answer satisfactorily. The prob- taken up with day-to-day worries, with all the things we still have to and lem is greatest when man and his actions are themselves the subject want to do. Wonder is something for daydreamers, and our society is too of observation, examination and analysis. That is where we encounter focused on usefulness and efficiency to give them much sympathy or most obstacles. But in fact the same goes for every form of observation space. Our activities are result-oriented and it is on their results they are and for all phenomena. It has never really proved possible to separate judged and valued. This attitude defines our perception, the way we see the things around us from ourselves. Our links with the world, and vice and experience things. Our brain filters out everything we don’t need, at a versa, are so strong that it is not particularly odd to conclude that they given moment. And that is just as well. We cannot afford to walk around are inextricably connected and that the world exists only because of us in a constant state of utter amazement. We would be caught in an autis- and within us. tic ecstasy. To function well in society, too much amazement is no help at Does this mean that we cannot be amazed about what happens all. I use e-mail and the internet dozens of times every day. I know how on our planet? Yes, that indeed is what it means. But it doesn’t mean it works. By which I mean I know how to use it. I have come to take it for that we cannot be amazed by the things we see around us. Thank God granted that it works if I hit a few keys. That no longer surprises me. But

029 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction

030 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction

031 foam magazine #19 / wonder theme introduction

032 foam magazine #19 / wonder One of the few fields where wonder has found a natural place is art. Art theme introduction exists by virtue of a fresh way of looking at our world and the ability to be amazed by it. This gives form and meaning to the sense of wonder. It’s the opposite of the practical and profit-oriented thinking that so impov- ~ erishes our society. In itself, art has no practical use. Rarely has a tree been so beautifully portrayed as by the Hungar- A sense of wonder cannot ian writer and photographer Peter Nadas. He has a wild pear tree in his garden, which he photographed for a year at different times of the day really be learned. and in different seasons, in ever changing light. The photographs are a silent, modest testament to the passage of time, barely perceptible but It’s something that comes unstoppable and merciless. They are accompanied by My Own Death, a short story in which a man sees his life pass before his eyes while ly- over you, suddenly and when ing on the floor after a heart attack. After three and a half minutes, he comes round again. It’s an occurrence that is as horrifying as it is com- you least expect it. monplace. The two stories, presented in two different forms with differ- ent speeds, speak of time, mortality, acceptance and resistance, and of ~ the thin line between life and death. Life and death, rise and fall are as incomprehensible as they are self-evident – for both the man and the tree. The difference is that the man knows it and suffers because of it. of course I don’t really know in any detail how it works or how it has been He can look back and see himself, albeit only briefly. constructed. There’s no need for me to know. It’s an invention I’m eager to Perhaps life itself is, ultimately, the greatest wonder. No one knows use to my advantage without having a clue about the technology. That’s why we are born, why we are who we are, how much time we have in this nothing compared to the next generation, the teenagers in the street or life or what the idea of death really is. I often think of the last words of a in the playground. They are growing up in a world of gaming, broadband, good friend’s grandfather. He had devoted his whole life to the essence satellites, interactive TV, texting and messaging. Nothing amazes them of man and to the way it relates to the rest of the universe. ‘Well, I won- any more. The inherent danger is that they’ll believe anything. Everything der…’, he said – and then he died. Intrigued till the end, he surrendered is possible – why shouldn’t it be? to the inevitable.

But how do you develop the ability to be amazed? Knowledge can be While Nadas has created a very moving series about aging, the passing acquired, and so can behaviour and perhaps even taste. But wonder? It of time and mortality, in her beautiful book Aila, the Japanese photog- seems that it is an ability that only decreases as the years go by, crushed rapher Rinko Kawauchi shows her bond with the world in quite a dif- by the pressure of an achievement-oriented technology-based society. ferent way. Kawauchi’s work is atmospheric and indirect. She shows a The danger that we take everything for granted, that we just accept ev- world caught in a divine light, before good and evil, a paradisiacal envi- erything we come across and lose our awareness of the wondrous, the ronment where all things have their natural place, however strange they bizarre, the unusual and the different is lurking just around the corner. may appear to us. It is an enchanted, vulnerable and fragile world. For I recently watched one of my daughters closely study a strawber- Kawauchi it is of great importance that the people who see her work do ry. An ordinary strawberry. She took her time to do so, because a three- so in an atmosphere of peace and security, as if, through her work, she year-old doesn’t yet have any real idea of time. She stared at it intensely. wants to create an intimate and safe place to counterbalance the hurry After a while she said: ‘Look daddy, lots of little hairs!’ She held up the and agitation of everyday life. In an interview with Masakazu Takei she strawberry, with an expression in which wonder and acceptance were once said: ‘I want to create a quiet, intimate place where people can be in perfect harmony. She was right: every segment of the strawberry had alone and listen to their inner voices while they are looking at my work.’ its own yellowy-green little hair. It’s something we could observe on any In her view, the photographs serve as instruments for reflection and strawberry, but when do we take the time to study a strawberry in this meditation. They require a staring, unthinking way of looking, provoking way? Her discovery was the result of the untainted observation of a child an awareness of the miracle of life and of our living planet at every lev- who looks before she thinks. el. ‘Aila’ is a Turkish word for family and connection. In this case it may Perhaps that is why a sense of wonder cannot really be learned. It’s be interpreted as a feeling of connecting with the world, with an ideal of something that comes over you, suddenly and when you least expect it. unity and essential mutual dependence. The longing for this ideal may Wonder is a strange phenomenon. Is it an emotion, a state of mind? In perhaps provide compensation for the downside of modernity based on any case it’s not something that can be summoned up – it just makes man disengaging himself from his natural environment and ultimately itself felt. For a moment you perceive things in a different way, and they also from himself. appear strange or peculiar, as if the earth is tilted for a moment, chang- The photographic work of the Japanese monk Syoin Kajii is interest- ing the perspective. ing in this context. Although Kajii himself is reserved about the relation- But are we not constantly surrounded by things that arouse sur- ship between his capacity as a monk and the photos he takes, drawing a prise, things we don’t understand and which – when it comes down to comparison between the two is only natural. In the text Jim Casper has it – are awesome or beautiful? Normally we pay them no attention and written to accompany Kajii’s portfolio, he refers to Kajii’s ‘heightened just carry on. It takes a particular sensitivity, the main precondition for sense of alertness’ and the analogy between the impalpability of a wave which may well be an open, receptive mind, but it’s incredibly hard to and that of a Zen koan. empty our minds and create space for new things to enter them without A koan is a paradoxical statement or unsolvable riddle which, in Zen preconceptions. We would be a little like that three-year-old who discov- Buddhism, serves to confuse a student in such a way that rational think- ers the world bit by bit, slowly creating a framework of knowledge and ing is pushed to the background and direct observation takes its place. experience that makes it increasingly difficult to escape from reason, The continuous direct observation which can thus be attained, without even for a moment. preconceived notions and prejudice, becomes the state of mind that in

033 foam magazine #19 / wonder Usually such stories, and Hauser’s images are no exception, deal with theme introduction people with a particular obsession, people who are considered eccentric and idiosyncratic by others. Perhaps, however, these lone wolves are in fact open to the wonder in the world around us. In order to experience a miracle as such and marvel at our natural environment or the often cu- Buddhism is called enlightenment (satori in Japanese). Thus the waves rious behaviour of man and everything he has produced, there must be photographed by Kajii do not appear to be recorded from a deliberate, a certain distance. Ultimately, losing yourself in all-embracing holism is conceptual viewpoint, rather they have originated from a completely also the kiss of death. You cannot look at the world in wonder unless you open, unlimited receptivity to the characteristics of a wave. Where in do so with a certain detachment. This does not mean there cannot be a the West, for example throughout the Romantic era, natural phenome- deeply felt social and natural bond. The opposite may well be the case. na which were simply too large and too complex to be defined rationally But those who are outsiders to some degree often have a well developed were viewed with a mixture of fear and fascination, repulsion and attrac- sense of the wondrous, remarkable or comical in what seems ordinary. tion, the work of Kajii expresses far more acceptance that the essence Ultimately, it is about the juxtaposition of originality, individuality and of a wave ultimately escapes every form of capture. singularity versus lethargy, blandness and conformism. Such acceptance is in essence alien to the Western approach to the world around us. Here, instead, there’s a need to deal with the world rationally and to lay the phenomena we encounter in it on the operating All images from the series Aila, 2004 © Rinko Kawauchi/Courtesy of the artist and table for dissection, description and analysis. This often gives rise to a FOIL GALLERY, Tokyo relationship between nature and culture that is as absorbing as it is risky – risky because natural phenomena are thus forced into a straightjacket Rinko Kawauchi was born in 1972 in the Shiga prefecture in Japan. She studied at in our culture and looked at from a biased, conditioned viewpoint. The the Seian College of Art and Design and worked in advertising for several years question then is how much justice is done to the often intangible charac- before choosing a career as a fine art photographer. In 2001 she simultaneously teristics of what is being investigated. Look, for example, at the intrigu- released three publications, Utatane, Hanabi, and Hanako. Great critical success ing spectacle the work of Sanna Kannisto offers us. She shows objects led to her becoming one of the most celebrated photographers in Japan. In 2002 she such as flowers, fruit, branches and occasionally a solitary small animal, received the prestigious Annual Kimura Ihei Award. Her European debut was at which have been taken out of their natural environment and exhibited in the Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles in 2004, curated by the sterile, semi-scientific context of a field studio. About this process Martin Parr. Within a few years she had published three more significant books: Kannisto herself says: ‘In my series Private Collection and Field Stud- Aila (2004) with Little More Publishing; Cui Cui (2005) and The Eyes, The Ears ies I was interested in borrowing methods of representation, as well as (2005) with FOIL Publishing. Rinko Kauwauchi has worked with the Japanese working methods, from the natural sciences, from anthropological and filmmaler Hirokazu Kore-eda, making the still photographs for the award-winning archaeological practices and from still-life painting tradition to use in film Nobody Knows (2004). my photographic work. Taking photographs in a field studio has become With a simple, serene and poetical approach, Rinko Kawauchi depicts birth, one of my most important working methods. The portable photography life, death and time. She has sometimes presented her work alongside her own Haiku box I have constructed is like a stage showing scenes from nature, which poetry, expressing her awe at everyday life. I direct. Once the object has been taken out of its original setting – out Kawauchi has participated in many exhibitions in Japan and abroad. Major of nature – it becomes special. The aspect of a white background that solo exhibitions have been at Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; The suggests scientific recording and documentation interests me.’ With a Photographers’ Gallery, London; Hasselblad Center, Göteborg; Semear Museu de sense of humour and a certain irony, Kannisto investigates the way in Arte Moderno de Sao Paulo and Huis Marseilles, Amsterdam. Rinko Kawauchi is which we approach nature and how the medium of photography inter- represented by FOIL Gallery in Tokyo. relates with the recording and representation of reality, as well as with the accumulation of knowledge. By expressly making use of language and the theatre of science, she creates mildly absurd images that have a greater tendency to emphasize the impossibility of using this method to find out more about the exhibited objects.

The complex relationship between science and art, between knowledge and naivety, and the question of whether there is still room left over for wonder in our knowledge-determined world, also plays a large part in the fascinating work of the Dutch artist Koen Hauser, whose portfolio is included in this edition. A short time ago, Hauser was invited to create new work with material from the Spaarnestad Photo archives, one of the largest press archives in Europe. Driven by his own obsession with the diorama he interlaced the found images with work in which he himself is featured to render a fantasy world. In these carefully constructed im- ages Hauser too plays with the idea of a world in which quite disingenu- ous things can be created and exist. It gives the feeling of a time in which there was still a place for voyages of discovery to unknown, mysterious distant places, a time in which there was still the opportunity to admire strange phenomena, a time that points to a past that is not yet so far behind us and where there was room for a fruitful and often wondrous mixture of science and fiction.

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